Medical agent such as anticancer drug mixed in transfusion causes a risk of radiation exposure. Therefore, a coinfusion processing in which such a medical agent or the like is mixed and adjusted with transfusion is performed in a safety cabinet set to have a negative pressure. Then, when coinfusion is carried out by a vial container filled with powder medical agent as the above-mentioned medical agent, a medical agent preparator sucks the transfusion from a transfusion bag by a syringe and inserts the syringe needle of this syringe to a cap section (rubber plug) of the vial container to inject the transfusion in the syringe into the vial container. Then, the medical agent preparator uses the syringe to suck the transfusion in which the medical agent has been dissolved. Since the medical agent in a fixed amount is filled in the vial container, the medical agent preparator repeatedly performs an operation of injecting the transfusion into a plurality of vial containers and sucking it until the required amount of the medical agent is dissolved in the transfusion. After the required amount of the medical agent is dissolved in the transfusion, the medical agent preparator inserts the syringe needle to the coinfusion mouth of the transfusion bag to return, into the transfusion bag, the transfusion containing the medical agent dissolved therein in the syringe.
The coinfusion processing is not limited to the vial container, and the coinfusion processing in which the medicinal solution in an ampule is injected into the transfusion is also performed. In such a coinfusion processing using an ampule, medicinal solution in an ampule with its head cut off is sucked into a syringe and the syringe needle is inserted to the coinfusion mouth of a transfusion bag, thereby injecting the medicinal solution in the syringe into the transfusion bag.
Here, Japanese Laid-Open Publication No. H1-244759 (Hereinafter Patent Document 1) discloses a radioactive medical agent dispensing apparatus for performing a dispensing operation while avoiding radiation exposure due to radioactive medical agent. However, in Patent Document 1, the apparatus is not designed to be used as a coinfusion apparatus for injecting medicinal solution into a transfusion bag, and there is no disclosure regarding a technique for preventing the transfusion bag from being exposed to radiation.
In view of the above-mentioned situation, embodiments of the present invention provides a coinfusion apparatus that can automatically perform a part or the entirety of the coinfusion processing and that can prevent the transfusion bag from being subjected to radiation exposure.